Microsoft SharePoint Sales To Hit $1 Billion In 2008

With more companies looking to make critical information easily accessible to and shareable with employees, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) said Monday that it expects total sales of its SharePoint online collaboration software will surpass the $1 billion mark in 2008.

"It's a significant number," said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, delivering a keynote address Monday in Seattle at the company's Office SharePoint Conference 2008. SharePoint is "based on a vision of letting workers share information in a better way," Gates added.

SharePoint is a collection of server-side tools and applications that allows businesses to make documents and other key data available through a single online portal. Microsoft launched the most recent version, Office SharePoint Server 2007, last year. With that release, the company added a number of new content management and collaboration features to the offering.

"You want to create a product that you can assume everyone in your company has access to," Gates said.

Microsoft said it has now sold more than 100 million SharePoint licenses since launching the product in 2001. Microsoft sold 75 million through the end of 2005 and 25 million more in the last two years -- meaning the suite has enjoyed a compound growth rate in license sales of about 15% over the past two years.